folded books

Firstly a huge thank you for the lovely comments about Harry’s playroom and the Book Nook; it quite made my week. The folded book art seemed to capture a few imaginations, so this week here’s a mini tutorial on how I made the various books above and below, using a pile of 20p junk shop books. Trial, error, glue and a large glass of wine all played a role in the end results, but if you’re inspired to have a go, read on. If the idea of laboriously folding your way through a fusty and dog-eared old novel is about as appealing as dental extraction, whisk straight to the end and allow me to tempt you with a giveaway instead.

1. Creating a hanging ‘Cascade’ book

I made this one last night using a small (6 inch) hardback Peppa Pig book from a charity shop. Find any hardback book; kids’ books are great for this as they don’t have many pages. You’ll also need glue or double-sided sticky tape, a round pencil or pen (for rolling the paper), and a stack of paper for your cascades. I used Papermania solid card stock, which I adore, but anything will do; brightly coloured tonal papers give this lovely effect, but clashing rainbow colours or plain paper also look great, depending on where you intend to hang it.

Start by rolling each page over on itself and sticking it in place so you have a series of gentle loops. Doing this will gently force the book covers out to lie flat (or at least to be held open), and create a kind of concertina of folds for you to tuck your cascading pages into.

Take a series of sheets of paper that are approximately the same size as the original book pages, and again gently roll each one over on itself and stick the ends together, giving you a selection of tubular, petal-shaped inserts. Don’t use too much pressure here; you want rounded curves rather than creases.

Tuck in your pages randomly between the folded book pages, and secure in place with glue or tape.

Add a few more pages by taping these to your first layer of inserts

Next, take some strips of contrasting colour paper and roll them up in a pencil, before gently pulling out to give a tendril-like effect. Glue these in place between the lowest layer of looped paper.

Finally, screw a small eyelet hook into the centre of the cardboard book spine and use this to hang it from the ceiling or a wall hook.

You can make these as big and fluid as you like, by adding layer after layer; it would make a beautiful mobile or sculpture trailing down a wall.. when I get the time I’m thinking of making a huge, floor to ceiling one in muted papers for a corner of our bedroom.

2. Creating Rolled Books

These are the easiest to make, if you choose the right kind of book. They look beautiful when stacked in loose piles, but also when hung as barrel-like pendants. First, decide whether you are going to fold just the middle of the book like the first one above, or whether you want to create a whole rolled book (middle). You can also leave a single sheaf of pages standing proud (above right) for added interest.

For a ‘barrel’ book, choose a chunky book (200-300 pages); the width will help it hold its shape. First, ease off the paperback book cover and any loose pages which come away with it. Flex the spine a bit until it loosens – as if it’s been read many many times. You’re hopefully using old junk shop books so this won’t take long.

Glue a long piece of string along the exposed spine; this will allow you to hang the book when finished and is much easier than trying to thread string through the finished piece.

Open the book in the middle and take a section of about 20 pages and roll it into the spine. Do this 3 or 4 times and they will start to hold their form and push the book outwards. You can glue or tape these loops in place by gluing the upper most sheet and pressing firmly into place, but often you won’t need to use any glue at all.

Once you get to the end of the book, go back to the middle and work around the other half, doing the same. The book will naturally form an increasingly tight barrel, and you will end up tucking your loops in. Glue your final loop in place and – hey presto – you have a rolled barrel book. If you want to hang it up, thread a bead to the bottom of the spine string to hold it in place and for the book to ‘sit on’, and you’re done.

These are very simple but a little more time-consuming. I showed you one last week which involved folding just a section of the book. If you follow the same principle and work your way all through the book, you’ll end up with a diamond-like hanging pendant like this;

I made these by the making the same two simple folds – just over and over again. If you’re making a hanging pendant, choose a thick book (at least 300 pages) so you get a nice full shape. And yes, that’s 600 folds, hence the large glass of wine. Other learnings; don’t do this whilst your 3yr old son is still awake and, inspired by the crafting environment, is demanding to be allowed to do some ‘scissor practice’ on your book. Also don’t practice your folding technique on the paperback being read by your husband, even if it was lying temptingly on the table; it won’t be appreciated. So, take your book and simply fold once to the centre;

And twice to bring the top corner down to meet the fold; then keep doing this for every single page. As before, if you want to hang these ultimately, glue some cord down the external spine before you begin folding, leaving a good length hanging out at either end.

Once you’ve got the hang of folding, you can experiment with punches too; I used a circle punch to take a slice out of each page of this one below.

Phew; enough curling and folding; I’m now bedecked with small paper cuts and doubtless the beginnings of repetitive strain injury, but I do have a beautiful shelf full of repurposed books. let me know how you get on..

And finally.. I have a $100 gift certificate for US craft supplier the Shoppe at Somerset to give away. I received this as a ‘thank-you’ for a piece that I wrote for one of their publications, but whilst the e-store is filled with a myriad of tempting things, prohibitive transatlantic shipping costs mean that I’d much rather a reader of this blog is able to benefit and to spend every cent on frivolous but delicious craft materials. If you’d like to win this, just let me know in a comment below and Harry will do the big draw on Monday.

Happy folding (and wine drinking…)!

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